Brats, Hops and Blockchain!

2017 was an impressive year of growth for cryptocurrencies and later in the year speculators joined the feeding frenzy and pumped the hell out of nearly every altcoin on CoinMarketCap’s top 100. Q1 and Q2 of 2018 has shown investors that a repeat of last years bull run is unlikely and the general consensus is that 2018 will be the year where groups that had an ICO last year now need to show proof of application, practicality and use in order to see their tokens appreciate in value.

Keeping this in mind, Civic has decided that Consensus 2018 is the perfect place to demonstrate the usability of blockchain and plans to debut the world’s first crypto beer vending machine later this week. Civic’s co-founder Vinny Lingham mentioned that the debut is more than just a stunt, it a genuine attempt to display the value of blockchain in a real world situation. The machine which was built in collaboration with brewing giant Anheuser-Busch is able to verify whether or not the user is of legal age for purchasing an alcoholic beverage.

While Civic does not plan to produce production models of these machines, they are looking to the future by identifying a broad range of situations where identify verifying devices could utilize Civic’s blockchain identity verification technology. Just last June during their ICO, Civic raised $33 million through the sale of its CVC token and currently their market value is over $100 million according to CoinMarketCap.

Civic foresees a future where their protocol is used by banks and other brokers to safely store customer identity and other valuable data in order to verify user identity and provide a range of age restricted services. Machines in need of customer verification data would request this information and pay via Civic token then once validated the purchaser would receive the product.

Fortunately, CVC tokens will not be used in the machine at Consensus and the 600 beers available will distributed will be free of cost.